by Bromberg, K
Because that does not fucking exist.
I return to my desk, but there isn’t anything in my inbox from the ad agency, even though the clock is ticking closer to nine.
On impulse, I pull out my cell and text CJ.
Graham: What did you have for dinner, Butterfly? I’m hoping it was something much more delicious than the yogurt I stole from the staff fridge.
CJ: I actually haven’t eaten yet. I was too busy picking up Stephen King and grabbing groceries and cat food. My apartment is ready early so I decided to head home.
What? Head home?
For a second, the words make no sense. When I think of home, I think of my home, because with CJ there, it finally feels like a home. Like a place I want to hang out on a Wednesday night and watch movies, or lounge in bed on a Sunday morning with coffee and pancakes.
With her. All of it with her.
And a part of me just can’t process that she’s taken off like that, without a heads-up.
Graham: You left? You didn’t tell me. I didn’t think your place would be ready so soon.
CJ: I didn’t either. But hey, miracles happen! It’s so nice to be home with the kitty. I think he missed me. He’s super cuddly and trying to eat my earring. Isn’t that sweet?
No. That’s not fucking sweet. She should be with me. Her crazy cat should be eating . . . a coaster in my house, a belt loop off my jeans, the top of the toothpaste tube.
Anything.
I rub my hand over the back of my neck, trying to make heads or tails of her departure. I cast about for something to say, something to make it clear I’d rather she be with me.
Graham: That’s great, but selfish bastard that I am, I was really enjoying having you with me.
I read it once more and hit send. I lean back in my chair and wait. That ought to at least start making it clear how I feel. I’ve never poured my heart out to a woman before, but I don’t see how she can fail to get the message from that.
I want more of her.
A few seconds later, a reply arrives, and I tense, hoping it’s her saying she’s called an Uber to meet me back at my place, to stay this night, then the next, then the next.
CJ: I enjoyed it too. Of course I did. And I know we were supposed to have seven days of lessons, but it’s nearly a week, and after today I feel ready. I’ve learned all I need to make it on my own. But thank you so much. I’ll never forget how wonderful you were. You were everything I wanted in a teacher and more.
A teacher? That’s all I fucking was to her? A goddamn teacher she’ll never forget? I stare at her note. I turn my phone upside down, as if I can shake out the true meaning of her message.
But when I read it once more, those cold words mock me.
I was only her teacher.
I wasn’t her lover.
She was clear from the start. She wanted lessons in sex. She didn’t sign up for romance.
I’m the only one who made that mistake. I’m the jackass who had this all wrong. I scoff, laughing at myself, but it’s not fucking funny. It's ironic. And it serves me right. Before her, I’d never been in love. Hell, I’ve never been in a relationship that lasted longer than a couple of months. Of course I’d fuck it up.
And make the rookie mistake of thinking she’d fallen in love with me too.
But even though I’ve royally screwed up when it comes to understanding what love is, I’d like to think I at least know respect.
And I need to respect the woman’s wishes. So I say something that’s true to my feelings while giving her the distance she seems to want.
Graham: Thank you. The pleasure was truly all mine. I loved every second of being with you.
Past tense. Loved. Was.
I hit send and immediately bring my thumbs back to texting position. Because this sucks.
There’s a painful ache in my chest. It’s no longer empty. It just fucking hurts, and I want to say so much more. I want to tell her that I’m not ready for this to end, that I don’t want it to end at all. Ever. I want to promise her that I can make all her dreams come true, and that there’s no need to make it on her own.
Or, God forbid, make it with some other guy.
The thought makes me sick. Physically ill. Sour inside. To think of some bastard with his hands on my CJ.
But she’s made her position clear. So I simply text—
Graham: I’m here whenever you need me, Butterfly. Anytime. Anywhere.
CJ: Thank you. That means a lot to me, Graham.
She means a lot to me. She means more to me than she’ll ever know.
I don’t know how long I sit silently at my desk, numb and more alone than I’ve felt since my best friend died, but eventually, my inbox dings.
The ads are here.
The new mock-ups are perfect, so I send my approval and then return to the collection of walls where I will sleep tonight.
It doesn’t feel like home. Not without her.
Chapter 25
CJ
I’m awoken Sunday morning by Stephen King sitting on my pillow, purring as he chews on my hair.
“No, gross,” I murmur, pulling him under the covers with me for a snuggle instead. “No chewing, buddy.”
But when he starts gnawing on the sleeve of my flannel pajamas, I don’t have the heart to stop him. I don’t have the heart to do much of anything except lie here and feel low.
So low.
“I miss him already,” I whisper to Stevie, my fingers gliding through his fur. “I don’t want to go back to being friends. I can’t.”
Stephen King meows, and I wish I knew what it meant. Deciding I’m not going to get solid advice from a cat—any cat, but Stevie is an especially lost cause—I call Dylan.
“I’m sad,” I whisper when he answers. “In the dating despair pit.”
Dylan grunts. “This is about that dick for brains you’re dating, right? Now, you give me his number. Better yet, his address. I’ll make him regret the day he—”
“No, no,” I say, cutting Dylan off before he can plot Graham’s murder. “It wasn’t like that. I broke my own heart. It’s my fault.” Tears well in my eyes for the hundredth time since last night. “I knew better than to fall for him, but I did it anyway.”
“Why should you have known better? Is he married?”
“No!” I say, brows snapping together. “I wouldn’t date a married man. No. He just…doesn’t have time for a relationship.”
“Fuck that. If he had half the sense God gave a domesticated turkey, he would make time. You’re worth it.”
“Domesticated turkeys are dumber than wild turkeys.”
“Yeah, they are.” Dylan sighs. “I’m sorry, kiddo. Getting your heart ripped out sucks. No way around that.”
I sniff. “I wish I could turn back time and undo it all.”
“No, you don’t. You’re braver than that.”
“You’re right. The fallout is awful, but the rest… It was like flying, Dylan. The absolute best thing I’ve ever, ever felt.”
“You need me to come out for the weekend? Take you to one of those terrible musicals you like? Get you drunk, and we can throw darts at this guy’s picture?”
I smile. “No. I’ll be okay.” Dylan starts to offer again, but I know he hates the city in the spring—and just about any other time—so I insist, “Seriously, I’ll be fine. Just hearing your voice helps. A lot. Thanks for being there.”
“Always,” he says. “I’m always here for you, cous. No matter what.”
Always here for you . . .
That was what Graham said . . .
And last night wasn’t the first time he said it.
A fragment of memory tugs at my mind. It repeats, urging me to listen.
Only I’m not sure why. But it’s loud, and insistent, so I pay attention as it demands I go searching for something that must be found. I thank Dylan, hang up, and roll out of bed before Stephen King can get his teeth on my socks, headed for the closet where I keep all my most treasu
red things.
Chapter 26
Graham
That was the worst night’s sleep of my life. And I’ve slept in a coach seat on a red-eye across the country. Hell, I’ve hit the sack on the floor of my office for an hour of shut-eye after working all night.
But this tossing and turning sucks.
She’s not next to me when I wake, and that feels like an affront to the fabric of the universe. When I wander into the kitchen to make a cup of coffee, the sink reminds me of her.
The motherfucking sink.
The stove holds a memory, for Christ’s sake.
Good thing I don’t use it, or I’d think of her every time I cooked, and now I’ve found yet another reason to never make a meal I can’t take out or order in.
I heave a sigh, trudge back down the hall, and curse my bed once more for taunting me with images of her on it, in it, curled up with me.
Hell, it’s been less than twelve hours, and everything is a reminder of the woman I fell unexpectedly ass over elbow for.
It’s a cruel joke. Is this what a broken heart feels like? How does anyone endure this? Get through it? All I know to do when my mind is a traffic pileup is to run. Maybe it will work with a piled-up heart too.
I pull on my basketball shorts, lace up some sneakers, and text Campbell that I’m going for a run, giving him the location. But he’s probably busy with his four-peat woman. As for me, I need to get the hell out of my lonely shell of a house.
Cue the sad song.
Yep, Taylor Swift, time to call me. I’ll inspire your next breakup tune.
I hit the sidewalk, lengthening my stride instantly, running hard so my mind goes as blank as it possibly can. So I can let the physical overpower the emotional.
I groan at the thought.
Emotions are not my strong suit. Hell, they’re not even in my deck.
All I can do is hope a workout will rid her from my mind. That has to be what the average guy does when he gets fucked by love, right?
Trouble is, a run is what I do to think.
To sort through problems at work.
To find solutions.
And my brain has a brilliant idea as I finish my workout outside of Central Park. It’s telling me to go talk to a friend.
But when I jog by the carousel in search of the food trucks, a long line snakes around the mint-green Luna’s Sweet’s vehicle. Despite my sour mood, I smile. I’m proud of my friend. I’m glad her business is thriving. And I won’t disturb her with my sorry story.
I turn around, lower my shades, and make my way out of the park, wandering past packs of cyclists speeding by and families out for Sunday afternoon picnics.
I’m half tempted to stop someone, anyone, and ask for help. Ask the harried mom wiping melted ice cream from her toddler’s hand what a note like this means.
Thanks for being my teacher.
I open the text from CJ once more, hunting for a hidden meaning when I bump into Campbell. His green eyes study me.
“Hey. I got your bat signal. But looks like you’re done.”
“Done is exactly what I am.”
He shoots me a quizzical look, reading between the lines. “What’s going on, man? Is this about the woman?”
I bristle, but then shrug in admission. No point fighting the truth. “Isn’t it always?”
He laughs lightly. “When a man is fucked in the head, it’s usually a woman.”
I sink down on the bench outside the park.
He joins me. “How did you fuck it up?”
“Why do you assume I fucked it up?”
“Please refer to my first point. When a man is fucked in the head, it’s usually because of a woman, and it’s usually because he fucked it up.”
Did I? Did I ruin things with CJ? “Maybe I did. So what do I do next?”
“You can apologize, grovel, pour your heart out, put your heart on the line. Any of those are good options. Personally, I prefer writing a rock song and singing it to her. But with your singing voice, that’s not gonna happen. So just use your words, man.”
Use my words.
It’s easy advice, but what exactly do I want to say?
He looks at his watch. “I need to take off, get my workout in before I pick Sam up from her game,” he says, mentioning his teenage daughter.
“Say hi to her from me. And next time, you tell me about that woman of yours.”
He nods and smiles. “Consider it done.”
I take off down Sixth Avenue, weaving among the Sunday afternoon pedestrians, reading over CJ’s note again.
This is like a note that says: Thank you for not smoking. Of course I'm not smoking, and of course I was happy to be her teacher. But I don’t feel like a teacher. I don’t think of her as my student. She’s the woman who has my heart. And I know we could be so much more. We could be everything.
But there’s no business book to tell me what the hell to do when you’ve fallen in love with your dead best friend’s sister who asked you to spend seven days seducing her. There’s no Forbes article on how to navigate that thorny situation.
Nor is there anyone in this city of millions I want to ask.
As I turn the corner on Fifty-Fifth Street, a familiar place draws me.
The St. Regis.
I blink, almost surprised I’m here.
But not entirely.
This is one of my places.
This is an anchor, and maybe that’s what I need right now.
As I head into the lobby, I picture the night with CJ. Only I’m not thinking of the stripping, though that was fantastic. I’m thinking of how we left together—as a team. How we found her brother’s cat. How we packed and returned to my place and fell asleep without screwing.
My mind jumps to the next night, to dinner, when I told her I was glad I could show her what she’d been missing, and she said two simple words in reply—me too.
But it wasn’t the words. It was the way she said them. How she looked at me like there was more between us than just sex.
Like how it’s been for me too.
I furrow my brow as I stand in the lobby, memories from the last week crashing into me, words I didn’t pay enough attention to at the time.
Before we made love. “I’m so glad it’s you.”
At the rink. “I do trust you.”
In the town car. “I’ll miss this.”
But more than the words, I linger on the look in her eyes. Was there more hidden there all along?
I don’t know the answer, but there’s one person I need to talk to. I call Luna’s wife. Right now, I need to use my words with her so I can use them with someone else.
Chapter 27
CJ
I find what I’m looking for at the bottom of a shoebox of cards from Sean’s funeral. The church had been full of gorgeous flower arrangements, and every one of them had been accompanied by a card. I saved them all—touched by the evidence of how many people loved my brother and would miss the light he brought to the world—but I’ve never gone back and reread them.
It still hurts too much.
Maybe it will always hurt too much.
In my experience with grief, the weight becomes easier to carry, but I’m always aware of it, slung over my shoulder. Losing my mother so young, I’d made Death’s acquaintance before I lost Sean, but never so intimately. Never with an adult’s knowledge that forever without one of your special someones can be a very long time.
From the moment I open the box, freeing the scent of cardstock, long-faded flowers, and a church filled with women’s perfume and musty winter coats, there are tears in my eyes.
By the time I pull out the cards and the program with Sean’s smiling face on the front, two hot trails are leaking quietly down my face. But I don’t fight these tears. I gave myself permission to feel this hurt a long time ago. To deny it would be to deny Sean and to push the memory of him away, which I never want to do.
I want him close, even if it hurts.
; I find Graham’s card near the bottom and pull it free, opening to the message written inside.
Dear CJ,
I don’t know what to say.
I’m usually good with words, but they escape me now that I really need them. When I want so badly to make this easier for you, and for myself.
But I can’t.
All I know is that I will never forget him. Sean was one of the best of us. He was a true friend to me, and from now on, I hope you’ll let me be the same to you. I’m here for you. Anything you need. That means today, tomorrow, and ten years from now, because I’m not going anywhere.
I know I can never take his place. I wouldn’t dare to try. But I’m here to hold your hand or be a shoulder to cry on or to take you for brunch the way Sean used to do. Whatever will help. I know it helps me to know that you’re still here. To know I’ll have someone to share memories with. I don’t want to lose those memories. Or you.
Sending you all my love today, as we gather to honor your wonderful brother.
Your friend for always,
Graham
With my throat so tight it’s hard to draw a full breath, I press the card to my heart. I knew he had said it before. And he means it. He wants to be there for me, and the last thing I want to do is push him away.
Maybe it’s time to stop moping around my apartment feeling sorry for myself and take action. To fight for Graham’s heart as fiercely as I negotiated for a week in his bed.
Sure, I could sit here with my hurt feelings and try to figure out the least painful path forward. But then I would be acting like a coward, like a woman who didn’t know how short life can be and how imperative it is to be brave. That may be the most important lesson I’ve learned, and I will draw upon all my courage to put my heart all the way on the line, no matter what. Graham is worth it, and I’m worth it too.
